Who says government is a crappy venture capitalist? Why, it’s former chief economic advisor to Obama Lawrence Summers. This is one of the rare true things said by anyone in the administration that could (and should) fit on a bumper sticker. Summers also refers to “externalities,” by which he means, “we earn back some of our value because solar doesn’t pollute,” but of course that doesn’t quite work if a non-viable company goes bankrupt after making a bonfire of its generous subsidies.
Not unrelatedly: Why is it that even the loudest liberals (like Elizabeth Warren) can only find four government spending programs to defend — e.g. police, firemen, teachers, and road-builders? If those were the only four things government did, the Tea Party wouldn’t exist (although it still should, thanks to innumerable ways even these four gouge the public such as Davis-Bacon rules that drive up the price of roads, tenure that makes it impossible to fire teachers, exorbitant pensions being paid to same, etc.).

One Response to “2008: “Hope.” 2012: “Gov Is a Crappy VC””

As Milton Friedman pointed out, money is spent most carefully when the money spent belongs to the person spending it and when that person spends it for himself and his family or business. Money is spent least carefully – indeed, often destructively – when it does not belong to the person spending it and when that person spends it not for himself but, instead, for strangers.